


butterflies like chains

by evilythedwarf



Series: Five Loves: Kate Austen [3]
Category: Lost
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-18
Updated: 2011-10-18
Packaged: 2017-10-24 18:17:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/266452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilythedwarf/pseuds/evilythedwarf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>because it got her the perfect little boy who calls her mommy and paints her pictures that make her want to cry and crawl back into that dark place and spin another tale and become someone else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	butterflies like chains

**Author's Note:**

> Kate/Aaron, for 5_loves [3/5]: metamorphosis

The day her son draws a blue stick figure with yellow hair surrounded by black smoke, she cries herself to sleep, and in the morning she makes herself breathe again and swallow the lump in her throat when Aaron climbs into bed with her. It’s Saturday and they always stay in bed till noon on Saturday mornings. [ _the trick is believing it, always has been, but it’s just so hard, **all the time**_ ]

Motherhood on fast forward, on a shore, in a faraway land and when they ask [ _again, and again, and again, and you’d think they’d find something else to talk about after a while_ ] what it felt like, the baby inside of her, she always says: like the first time a butterfly flaps its wings – there’s chaos for you.

Fear runs her life now, and it’s different –  **worse**  – than before because it’s not about running and trying not to get caught, it’s about staying and knowing she’s trapped already. And yet. This is her life and this is her child and she can almost believe, sometimes, when he’s like a monkey climbing trees, that he’s never been anyone else’s. [ _the trick is believing, but it’s getting damn near impossible with the blue eyes and the gold hair and the sweet smile_ ]

It was always easy, before, a method to her lies in the corners of her mind – the dark ones – where Monica lived and Lucy was born and Annie liked to spin tales of lost little girls. All organized and catalogued and they all came out of those nights wishing on stars to take her away. [ _the trick is becoming someone else; wishing it so bad it becomes the truth, her truth and polygraphs have nothing on you when you’re lying by saying what's true_ ]

It’s looking at her son [ _it’s **hers**  and never anyone else’s, born on an island, a miracle of the God she doesn’t believe in_] and becoming the kind of woman who sleeps with a random surfer [ _white blonde hair and clear blue eyes because, well_ ], in Melbourne, one night. It’s not regretting it because it got her the perfect little boy who calls her mommy and paints her pictures that make her want to cry and crawl back into that dark place and spin another tale and become someone else – start over from scratch is what she wants, but no.

She tells a lie in the shores of, where was it again? Then there’s a tornado spinning her around and now she’s trapped in it forever and she can’t let go, even if she wants, even if she needs to and there was always a method to the lies she told – this one is too full of truth, she knows and that’s what makes it hard. [ _the trick is, reaching into the darkness – she was never afraid of shadows in the dark – and pulling out a new someone with a new story and a new smile and ties to nowhere_ ]

She’s always been good at making believe but her life’s already based on so many things that never happened [ _smell of fire, oh, and burn away herself_ ] and so many things she can’t ever burry that building this lie, this life, it does not come easily. She learned how to lie, like other people learn how to laugh, how to say the right thing and how to cover up what she never wanted to believe and now she’s got Aaron and… 

She chose the names of saints and built something out of nothing and it was easy – like her own real life never was – but there’s too much behind and it’s too hard to keep up with the flutter of the butterflies surrounding her, making invisible knots that tie her up inside, in place, unable to get away and forcing her to stay and fight and when she cries, at night, sitting in the dark listening to her baby breathe and move and live, she knows morning will come and she’ll take one more deep breath and swallow the taste of true-love-tears and smile at the boy who thinks she hangs the moon.

  
♥

**Author's Note:**

> 19 JUNE 2008


End file.
